Lone star: Hamilton outguns Vettel in battle of Texas

Date: November 20 2012

Tom Cary

AUSTIN: They like their stars in this part of the world, and they don't come much bigger than Lewis Hamilton.

The return of formula one to the promised land of the US after an absence of five years was won on Sunday by formula one's great entertainer. If anyone is going to crack this elusive market it is the 27-year-old lover of Los Angeles with the chalet in Colorado, the Pussycat Doll girlfriend and the million-dollar smile. In a thrilling battle with Red Bull's championship leader Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton prevailed by just 0.6 seconds. Even Gordon Ramsay, watching on from the pits at the $384 million Circuit of the Americas, would have struggled to cook up a better script.

Hamilton's victory did not only prove popular in Texas, it will also delight formula one's paymasters. Vettel's second place and Fernando Alonso's third, thanks partly to Ferrari's controversial decision to hand their second driver Felipe Massa a five-place grid penalty before the race, ensured that the duel for the drivers' title goes on to the final race of the season in Brazil this weekend. The Spaniard is just 13 points behind Vettel heading to the infamously inclement Interlagos.

Red Bull did wrap up their third straight constructors' crown in Texas but it was hard to ignore the sense of disappointment in Vettel's voice as he crossed the line and told his team: ''We did everything we could and we can be very happy.''

The day had begun with a classic bit of chicanery. Ferrari's decision to break the seal on Massa's gearbox drew a five-place grid penalty that lifted his teammate Alonso up to seventh and onto the clean side of the grid - a huge advantage at the new circuit which has not yet been ''rubbered in''. It polarised the paddock between those who saw it as a reasonable exploitation of the rules, and those who saw it as breaking the spirit of the regulations.

Ferrari, a team with a clear history of favouring its lead driver, certainly wasn't losing any sleep over it.

Either way, Ferrari's ruse worked perfectly. After a pre-race featuring a marching band and Hollywood stars ranging from Patrick Dempsey to Matt LeBlanc to George Lucas, Alonso got off to a flyer and was up to that important fourth spot within a couple of corners. His day got even better when Mark Webber retired from third place on lap 18 with an alternator failure, just moments after being informed that his kinetic energy recovery system was misfiring. It was Webber's first retirement with a mechanical failure in 59 races, a run stretching back to Japan 2009, and which must have had Vettel's side of the garage sweating.

Instead it was Hamilton who posed Vettel the greatest threat; the pair engaging in a game of cat and mouse. Every time Hamilton threatened to get into the DRS range of a second, the German would respond. From lap 35 onwards, Hamilton was within range and with a sellout crowd of 120,000 lapping up the drama, stuck limpet-like to the back of the Red Bull for lap after lap.

Hamilton's persistence was finally rewarded on lap 42 when he managed to pass Vettel. Thereafter their roles were reversed: Vettel became the hunter and Hamilton the hunted. Crucially, Vettel was never quite able to get within DRS range.